Prentices and their sweethearts, and city matrons with their husbands, frequented the place; while unfledged Templars paraded as fops, and young ensigns sported their new cockades. The morning water-drinking was not neglected, but the full tide of life at Bagnigge was from five to eight p.m. on Sundays, when the gardens were crowded with tea-drinkers. A prentice-song sets forth the delights of the Wells:-- Come prithee make it up, Miss, and be as lovers be We’ll go to Bagnigge Wells, Miss, and there we’ll have some tea; It’s there you’ll see the lady-birds perched on the stinging nettles, The crystal water fountain, and the copper shining kettles. It’s there you’ll see the fishes, more curious they than whales, And they’re made of gold and silver, Miss, and wags their little tails; They wags their little tails, they wags their little tails. [Illustration: Frontispiece _for the_ Sunday Ramble; _Being a View in Bagnigge Wells Garden, drawn on y^e Spot._ _Salubrious Waters, Tea, and Wine, Here you may have, and also dine; But, as ye through the Garden rove, Beware, fond Youths, the Darts of Love._] About 1810 the place became more exclusively the resort of the lower classes, though the situation was still somewhat picturesque. In 1813 Thomas Salter, the lessee, became bankrupt, and Bagnigge Wells was put up for sale by auction[59] on four days in the month of December. Not a bench or shrub was omitted: the “excellent fine-toned organ,” the water-organ, the chandeliers from the Long Room, dinner and tea services of Worcester china; the tea-boxes, two hundred drinking tables, four hundred teaboards, and some four hundred dozen of ale and stout. The various rooms and buildings were also offered for sale, including “Nell Gwyn’s house,” the summer-house, the bake-house, the grotto, temple, bridges; the two leaden rustics,[60] the fountains and all the gold and silver fish. Also the pleasure and flower gardens with their greenhouses, all the trees, including a “fine variegated holly tree,” the gooseberry and currant bushes, the hedges, shrubs and flowers. In the year following, however, the place was re-opened under W. Stock’s management, and though the gardens[61] were now curtailed of all the ground west of the Fleet (at this time a ditch-like, and, on warm evenings, malodorous stream), an attempt was made to revive their popularity. The proprietor’s efforts were not very successful, and during the next few years the premises frequently changed hands. In 1818 the lessee of Bagnigge Wells was Mr. Thorogood, who let it to Mr. Monkhouse (from White Conduit House) about 1831. In April 1831 Monkhouse advertised the Concert Room as being open every evening for musical entertainments, which continued to be the main feature of Bagnigge Wells until its close. In, or before, 1833 Richard Chapman was the proprietor, and John Hamilton in 1834.